Permanent Representative of Georgia to the United Nations, Ambassador Kaha Imnadze delivered a statement during the UN Security Council Open Debate on the Role of States, Regional Organizations and the UN in Conflict Prevention and Resolution

On December 6, 2018 Permanent Representative of Georgia to the United Nations, Ambassador Kaha Imnadze delivered a statement during the UN Security Council Open Debate on the Role of States, Regional Organizations and the UN in Conflict Prevention and Resolution.

In his statement Ambassador Imnadze spoke about the role of the regional organizations in conflict prevention and resolution. He stated that for almost two decades Georgia has enjoyed a very fruitful engagement and cooperation of the United Nations and the OSCE, both deploying their missions in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region – the UNOMIG and the OSCE Mission to Georgia respectively and their work was vital on the ground. Ironically, both were discontinued by the Permanent Member of the Security Council, casting a veto and thus creating a vacuum of international presence.

As stated by the Permanent Representative of Georgia, luckily, the European Union Monitoring Mission has been dispatched to monitor the situation on the ground. While the importance of the EUMM presence cannot be underestimated, unfortunately, it is yet unable to fulfil its mandate since the Russian Federation, as the occupying power, is blocking access to the occupied regions.

Ambassador Imnadze specified that United Nations, European Union and the OSCE are complementing each other as the three co-chairs of the Geneva International Discussions. He further noted that regrettably the format’s full potential yet remains to be unlocked, since the progress on key issues remains elusive due to lack of political will on the part of Russian Federation, while the work of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanisms under the GID umbrella - is becoming unduly politicized and hampered. In this context, he noted that it is critical to safeguard the IPRMs and return without further delay to the usual working setting in full respect of the founding principles and ground rules.

Ambassador Imnadze concluded that given close interlinkages and mutually reinforcing nature of security, development and human rights, strengthening engagement on prevention between the Human Rights Council and the wider UN system is of vital importance. It was stated that in this context, that Georgia regards cooperation under the agenda item 10 of the Human Rights Council on technical assistance and capacity building as an extremely practical and efficient tool for preventive purposes.